Piggybacking on last week's thoughts, I realize that I forgot to mention thermostats.

ecobee interfaces with your mobile technology

How do smoke detectors and thermostats relate? By their manufacturer. The same home owners living in San Francisco, no they're not paranoid, needed an alternate solution to the Google owned Nest thermostat. Something with a simple, well designed, user friendly interface that they could not only program but also monitor, pause and resume while on vacation. Who doesn't want to come home to a warm home after a ski week without paying a PG&E bill to match?

Ecobee has come out with two great solutions, the Smart and Smart Si thermostats and they have a new App "Home IQ" in beta so that you can see your personal savings and energy usage. Their controls a digital interface, small profile and can interact with your iStuff, phone, computer etc. it can learn your patterns and desired home temperatures without reporting back to big G so that they can determine the best time to send you which advertising.